Page 37 of True North
Misha wanted to stay up until dawn and ask JT every one of his burning questions, but—okay, fine: he could wait until tomorrow. He got up to turn off the lights. When he turned back to the bed, JT was still sitting up, looking in Misha’s direction in the darkness. Misha waited for him to say something, but just when he thought JT was about to speak, he instead lay down and rolled to face the wall.
“JT,” Misha whispered. He crawled beneath the sheets and settled himself on his pillow. “JT?”
JT sighed. “What.”
“I’m glad to tell you,” Misha whispered.
JT rolled onto his back. After a moment, he reached out and squeezed Misha’s shoulder. “Night, Misha.”
Sixteen
As the day of the shifter cookout approached, Misha grew more and more horrified that he had agreed to attend. Worse, JT had been there to hear him say he would go, which meant there would be absolutely no wriggling his way out of it. Maybe he could pretend he’d gotten food poisoning, only he and JT ate the same diet, so it wouldn’t make sense for Misha to get food poisoning if JT wasn’t also sick. Maybe he could blame it on some bad garbage, only then he’d have to own up to eating garbage, and he could all too clearly imagine JT’s disappointed-slash-disgusted expression. There was no helping it: he would have to go.
“What did they want you to bring?” JT asked him, two days after The Porn Incident, which was how Misha had been thinking of it, capital letters and all. JT was sitting at the kitchen table working on his weekly grocery list, and Misha was ostensibly helping by looking to see what they had in the cupboard but was in reality mostly eating blackberries at the sink.
“…Bring?” Misha said, through a mouthful of blackberries.
“Yeah, you know, like are you supposed to bring pop or whatever,” JT said, then looked up from his list and squinted at Misha. “Is that not a thing in Russia? Most cookouts here are potlucks.”
“Pot luck,” Misha repeated uncertainly.
“Sorry. A potluck is when everyone who goes brings food or a drink. I don’t know how the shifters run things, though.”
“They don’t say,” Misha said. He was pretty sure nobody had said anything about this, but it was very possible he just hadn’t understood. Shit.
JT was still watching him. “Why don’t I pick up some pop at the store just in case. Or you could come with me.”
“Sveta today,” Misha said, grateful to have an excuse JT would accept. JT was both stubborn and persuasive, and Misha could see why he was his team’s captain: he got things done.
The soda rode in the back seat of JT’s truck on Sunday afternoon as they drove into town. Misha had no idea where they were going; JT had learned the location of the cookout through some possibly nefarious means. Instead of turning off to head downtown, he continued east on the same road they’d come in on, then cut north into a subdivision of modest but well-kept homes. The weather was sunny and hotter than usual, and a sweat drop trickled down Misha’s lower back as JT slowed down and started peering at house numbers.
Misha could tell which house it was from the number of cars parked out front: a one-story brick house with a large tree in the yard shading tidy planter beds. JT had to pass the house and go farther down the road before he could find a spot to park.
“Good turnout,” JT said approvingly.
“Ugh,” Misha said, which made JT laugh.
JT wouldn’t go in the back yard with him. “Sorry, buddy. Shifters only. I’m going to camp out here.” He pointed to a swing hanging on the front porch. “Come get me when you’re done.” He clapped Misha on the shoulder and his hand lingered there for a moment, squeezing gently, before he let go.
Misha swallowed. From the fenced yard came the sounds of music and laughter, and the smell of a charcoal grill. He was going to have to walk around the side of the house and open the gate and announce his presence in some way, and then—what? Talk to people?
He tucked one bottle of soda under each arm, set his jaw, and went in.
There were more people in attendance than had been at the meeting. People had brought their children, for one thing, and there were also some adults Misha didn’t recognize. He hesitated at the gate. No one had seen him yet. He could still turn around and leave.
“Hey, Misha!” a voice called. So, too late.
The voice was Lenny’s. He stood at the grill wielding a pair of tongs that he waved at Misha in welcome. A few other people turned to look and smiled when they saw him. Misha awkwardly clamped one soda bottle in his armpit and lifted his forearm in a weak wave.
A woman detached from the loose cluster of people standing near the buffet table and headed in Misha’s direction. He recognized her from the meeting: the older woman with gray hair who had put a stop to the squabbling about the date. “Glad you made it,” she said with a smile. She gestured at his soda bottles. “Those for me?”
“For cookout,” Misha said, then belatedly realized this must beherhouse, that she was the one hosting the cookout. He was an idiot.
“Kind of you,” she said, took the bottles from him, and herded him over to the grill.
There were so many people. Misha was given a hot dog and a beer and obediently consumed both. A couple of people chatted with him briefly and moved on, and then he got sucked into conversation with a chubby guy with glasses who was not, it turned out, actually a shifter at all but was instead someone’s human husband, so JT was full of shit about shifters only. His name was Brent and he didn’t seem to mind that Misha had almost nothing to say. He talked about his kids, some sport he coached that Misha had never heard of, and some TV show he liked that Misha had also never heard of. All of this took Misha through an additional round of hot dog and beer. Then Brent said, “Anyway, what’s Russia like? You’re the Russian guy, right?”
“Yeah,” Misha said. “Russia is cold.”